Lead In The Water: Flint's Crisis 1,122 Days and Counting
On April 25, 2014, the City of Flint changed its water supply from Detroit to the Flint River in a cost-saving measure.
It’s been three years and 26 days since residents of Flint, MI have had clean water.
There are children entering preschool, who have lived their whole lives never being able to drink from the tap or play in the sprinklers on a hot day.
Over Memorial Day Weekend 2016, I drove to Flint with a caravan of people bringing water. It was a literal drop in the bucket for what they needed, but anything helped. Cars and trucks were filled with bottled water, and my group went to the north side of Flint to do door-to-door deliveries to people’s homes. The team leader warned us this was a “dangerous” part of Flint, where people were “shot on a daily basis.” As we drove along block after block of burned out, abandoned houses, it seemed unlikely that we would even find anyone at home, much less anyone in a criminal frame of mind. When we stopped to unload it was in a parking lot that had a mini-mart on the corner. Across the street was a boarded up junior high school, surrounded by a field of waist-high weeds.
Walking block to block, the mini-mart was the only extant business. The auto repair shop was abandoned. The liquor store was boarded up. It was quiet and hot. No lawnmowers going, no dogs barking, no kids running up and down the street. It was difficult to tell if anyone actually lived in many of the houses. Unless they were burned down, we dutifully went to every door and knocked. Surprisingly, many people were living there and unsurprisingly, all were grateful for the water.
One man pulled a tarp up to show us what a week’s supply of water for his family looked like. It was essentially the same as the bottled water section in a grocery. One part of an aisle in a store was what one family needed for a week in water. Imagine having to buy and carry that much water every week just to live.
People have asked me why the residents of Flint don’t just pick up and move. It’s clear, from the empty houses that many have. It’s also clear that many can’t. They’re elderly. They’re sick. Their jobs are in Flint. They own their houses, which are now essentially worthless, so there’s no money to move. It’s also clear that the people, who have chosen to stay, have love and pride in their homes and communities. They are doing the best they can after being dealt a very bad hand. Part of their bad hand is the lack of communication and transparency from their elected government officials. Many complained about not being able to get through to representatives locally or at the state level.
I first learned about the Flint water crisis on twitter. This was long before mainstream media was covering the situation, and while lead poisoning is serious, it seemed likely that there wouldn’t be any real story because the city would take care of the problem. That’s the brand promise of municipal government: Residents pay money and get clean water.
Apparently the city of Flint didn’t get the memo about a government’s duty to its residents. In a truth being stranger than fiction situation, the city of Flint has failed its residents at every conceivable turn, whether it was denying the water was poisoned to refusing Detroit’s offer to return to their water system to threatening foreclosure for 8000 residents with unpaid water bills. While lead levels in the water supply have dropped, residents are still required to heavily filter tap water. The aging lead pipes in Flint continue to be a concern, but replacing plumbing is expensive. Meanwhile, dreams dry up with each contaminated droplet of water that falls.
It’s easy to feel sorry for Flint, MI. What’s harder to wrap our minds around is the fact that our water supplies are at risk from any number of threats. In Columbus, Ohio, it’s hexavalent chromium. Throughout the Midwest and Northeast, it’s lead. It’s not only municipal water. Well water is also affected, often by agricultural run-off such as pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers. Fracking run-off and chemical waste are also a concern. Plus, as protesters in Standing Rock tried to warn us, oil and water don’t mix. The proliferation of pipelines across our country has already taken a toll on our water supplies.
Water is life. Clean water is a human right. Municipalities that collect taxes from residents and charge them for water usage are obligated to provide safe, drinkable water. Flint hasn’t had clean water for 1,122 days and counting. These are simple statements, but unfortunately, the reality is far more complex.